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Chicken Farmers of Canada Team Up With Theresa Albert to Bring Cooking Back

Podcast and blog focuses on healthy and home-cooked meals that anyone can
cook
OTTAWA, Aug. 17 /CNW Telbec/ - There's a new addition to the list of
endangered species - the home cook. Spurred by a generation of food marketing
that categorized cooking as just another chore, the act of cooking has been
slowly chipped away at by convenience foods and ready-to-eat meals.
Chicken Farmers of Canada (CFC), along with Registered Nutritionist,
television personality and best-selling cookbook author, Theresa Albert have
taken to social media to help this generation better provide for themselves
and their families.
The campaign utilizes the CFC blog, dubbed "Chicken Feeds," launched this
spring, as well as a video podcast series that will be promoted on the CFC
website and blog. The content is designed to be instructional and simple,
keeping the focus on how to make healthy food choices, while saving money with
minimal time in front of the stove.
"These days, we're working longer hours, and spending less time than ever
preparing food," says Albert. "The problem is, we've gotten so used to
high-fat and high-sodium convenience foods, that we've forgotten how simple
and rewarding cooking can be."
In an article for the New York Times, In Defense of Food, author Michael
Pollan notes that the amount of time we spend cooking has dropped
approximately 40% since 1965. He also notes that it's likely that this trend
will continue, since with each generation, some basic knowledge of cooking is
lost.
"I learned to cook from my mother, and from my aunts and uncles," says
Albert. "Are kids today getting the same education at home? It's not likely.
The reality is that we learn from our parents, so the less focus the current
generation puts on home cooking, the less the next will know about it."
CFC chose the podcast as the channel for the information because of its
capacity to create conversations online, the high number of Canadians actively
using the internet and its relatively low cost.
"A few years ago, getting a message like this out to people across the
country would have been next to impossible with a small budget," said Mike
Dungate, General Manager for CFC. "As we experiment more with social media,
we're finding that we can reach more people for less, allowing us to focus our
content on teaching, rather than just selling. That makes a big difference to
people."
The video podcast will run every month for the remainder of the year
along with blog posts from Theresa Albert. Both are available at
http://www.chickenfeeds.ca.